but can't say too much about it right now, but if hofo keeps this up he might be well placed for a vacancy that might be coming up sometime soon, and his boss thinks it'd be a really good opportunity for him.

at the end of our year we have to submit requests to people to ask how we did, and they have to write about how we did. I sent eight requests out and got them all back and they were all really good and really nice about me and that made me really happy. probably the only thing that keeps me there is feeling appreciated by some of my colleagues.

most people see it as a total ball ache and can't be bothered and rush it all at the end of the year (eg I still have a slide to do summarising what everyone said and a form to fill in by the end of the week, and then my appraiser has loads to do before the end of the month) but getting the actual responses is really good

my opinion of the whole process will be subject to change in a couple of weeks when I find out if I will ever be able to get promoted again, cos if not I need to find a new job :/

who you felt lives up to companies core values or some shit. One of the girls in my team said she was nominating me because I "know everything" and can always answer any question she ever has, which was quite nice.

However it was her last day at work before going off to start her new job so her nomination probably counted for FUCK ALL.

that it was 'fabulous' and 'a pleasure to read from start to finish' and then used a lot of words like ELEGANT and NUANCED and SUCCINT :D actually i just wanna c&p all my essay feedback in this thread tbqh. it would be nice if there were more career paths where the key skill was being really fucking good at writing essays about obscure books.

who's really underrated so i've been trying to evangelise about him a bit. there's hardly anything been published on him so far so this is definitely my big chance... to get something published in some obscure journal that probably about three people will ever read, for no pay. ACADEMIA!

by my dissertation supervisor who said i'm "extremely gifted" and have the best marks he's seen in the ten years he's taught at the university. so far I've told my friend, my boyfriend and my mum. its really nice cause I care a lot less about whether I get the funding I've applied for cause now I don't really feel it would be a reflection of me being really stupid or something.

and some kids started giving me some shit about not being able to jump over them so I turned my back on them and they thought I was walking away but then I did a massive backflip over the 5 bikes and landed on my feet and they all said you are the best

yeah there's a raging debate between students unions and staff about this in the uk. in my old uni one of the arguments put forward for calling students "customers" was that it was easier for support staff, cleaners etc. to understand :|

this is right up there with having to explain to friends and family that you're not actually on 10 weeks holiday over the summer, but that you're trying to get some research done (at which point you get a conversation ending, "oh, that's right", because they've got no clue as to what it means for a humanities academic to be doing research).

so many people on my uni course view themselves as detached consumers of education, rather than having any stake in the university itself.

We've just been given our options for final year, and obviously some modules which were previously offered aren't available next year as some lecturers are on sabbatical etc, as is the case with every uni ever. Obviously this is disappointing if there's a module you really wanted to do, but there's a big uproar amongst some of the students on my course about how they've paid £9000 so the university has a responsibility to offer them the modules that were 'advertised' when they first applied for the course etc- but obviously universities don't work like that. Makes me really angry, entitled little shits some of them. Also the department are offering some amazing new modules next year (including one about outsider/fringe music ie. no wave, dark ambient, industrial, riot grrrl, drone etc!!) so the scope of the course is actually being widened rather than narrowed.

Anyway this has absolutely nothing to do with this thread, sorry guyzzz